Saving Stiles
by Anderida
Summary: Stiles encountered a creature he wasn't expecting and now he needs saving. Set mid-season 2, before Lydia's party.
1. Chapter 1

**Saving Stiles **Chapter 1

Sheriff Stilinski looked down at the drawn, pale face that he knew, intellectually, belonged to his son but which emotionally he found hard to believe was the same boy. Stiles was always animated, vocal, fidgety. The wan boy in the bed in front of him was deathly still and silent as the grave. Which struck the sheriff as ironic since he knew now that the graveside was where this was going to end.

It didn't seem a moment since he was having these same thoughts in this same hospital but in respect of his desperately ill wife. She had been hooked up to much the same machines that her son, their son, was now connected to. And they did as much good for her as they were doing for Stiles.

Stiles' doctors had explained as best they could, but ultimately they didn't know what they were fighting. It seemed to be a virus of sorts but they couldn't find it in any of their tests. They could only detect Stiles' reaction to the infection not the infection itself and that meant they really had no idea how to treat it.

Stiles was on a broad spectrum antibiotic cocktail, morphine and an anticonvulsant following the grand mal seizure two days ago, which had been new, unexpected and all kinds of frightening. His boy's blood was being recycled through a state-of-the-art dialysis machine which was attempting to both clean his blood of toxins, the result of the battle his body was waging against the infection, and to lower his core body temperature to reduce the risk of swelling to his brain.

The doctors had told him that a scan of Stiles' brain showed a degree of swelling that would account for the blackout that had resulted in his admission to Beacon Hills Memorial five days before. It was practically the only pronouncement the medical staff had made with any degree of certainty.

Then the High Dependency Consultant had seemed very positive, cheerful almost, that Stiles was breathing for himself and that they had only needed to intubate him when he was first admitted. After 12 hours they'd removed the tube and Stiles had been able to breathe without the ventilator.

The sheriff had been encouraged by that at first, assuming that, given time, his son would fight off the infection, or the doctors would find the right treatment.

But the days passed, more scans were ordered and a ridiculous amount of blood was drawn for testing, but Stiles remained in a critical condition.

The seizure had been unforeseen and hugely shocking, but in a strange way the sheriff derived some level of hope from it; that this new symptom would help the medical staff to narrow down the cause.

But no new treatment emerged, just the anticonvulsant and more faith placed in the noisy machine linked into the boy's circulatory system. The sheriff found little comfort in that because he knew that aggressive dialysis alone could not save his son.

For most of the five days he'd been lying in this bed, Stiles had been so high on medication that he was barely conscious and never alert enough to know what was happening to him, much less talk and laugh and backchat and, well, be Stiles. Like this he was just a husk, the dried outer packaging that lacked the vital spark that made Stiles Stiles.

They say that you don't know the value of something until it's gone and Stiles' endless chatter was a case in point. Somehow the world seemed knocked off its axis without Stiles pronouncing on everything, over-explaining and offering an opinion on anything that captured his fleeting attention.

The sheriff thought of those interminable conversations over dinner when he was too tired to actively listen, when he had often prayed to a god he no longer believed in to keep Stiles quiet for just a moment so he could enjoy his meal in silence.

How he regretted that now. He would do anything to hear his son's voice again, yammering on about nothing in particular and everything in specific.

Perhaps he was responsible for Stiles' current grim predicament because of his prayers for some peace and quiet. Yes, he could feel guilt rise in his gorge. He had asked for quiet and his prayers had been answered in the worst possible illustration of the old adage, 'be careful what you wish for'.

So this was his fault. He had caused this. Caused his son to be lying mute and unmoving in a hospital bed, waiting for death to claim him. The sheriff's hand flew to his mouth to stifle a cry or to prevent himself from throwing up. Maybe both.

He was sure that he'd swap places with his son in a heartbeat. But he wasn't stupid: he wouldn't wish for anything ever again.

Yet part of his brain not yet frozen by the horror of the situation was still reaching for reason, looking for logic in the irrational occurrences of the last five days. He heard the various doctors telling him that sometimes science wasn't enough, that sometimes they didn't have all the answers. This he already knew. But they talked of viruses and infections, of antibodies and white blood cells, not of poorly phrased wishes or divine retribution for selfish prayers.

Blood was tested, drugs administered and hope dispensed regularly. But all the clinical indicators showed that his son was slipping away, dying quietly, motionlessly. Uncharacteristically. And as the days wore on, the doctors prescribed more drugs and gave out less hope.

The sheriff knew now that they had been preparing him. Preparing him for something he believed would never happen, just as he knew now that it would.

The last doctor to examine Stiles, just two hours ago, had sought out the Sherriff in the hospital canteen, where he'd been sent by well-meaning nursing staff, and had taken him to a small windowless room for privacy to tell him that, in his medical opinion, Stiles was unlikely to survive the next 48 hours.

It was a surreal conversation because it was practically word for word what the Oncologist had told him the night before his wife had died. Did these doctors have any idea what that was like, to hear the same hopeless message couched in sorrowful platitudes? To hear that taking your wife from you wasn't enough? Now they want your only son. Your only child and the only reason you have to get up in the morning.

The sheriff turned away, suddenly no longer able to look on the shell that doctors told him was his dying son. He turned and left the room, almost in a panic, before he could catch his breath. Then he was wandering aimlessly down the corridor towards the elevators. He couldn't think where he was going, or why. He just knew he needed to go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Away.

He stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind him. He stood facing the back wall of the car and waited. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't register the need to select a floor, he just remained staring at the elevator wall not seeing the poster in front of him that warned of the perils of lax hand hygiene.

Some moments, minutes, or maybe a half hour later, the elevator door opened with a shushing noise at the behest of a young intern on a hurried break. The sheriff turned at the sound and came to his senses, more or less. He pushed past the man in pale blue scrubs and found his feet taking him back to Stiles.

Approaching the doorway to his son's room, the Sheriff saw a figure bending over the bed and for an instant hope fluttered in his stomach. Perhaps a new doctor with a new treatment?

But something in the man's demeanour immediately informed the lawman that he was not a member of the medical staff, even before he noticed the leather jacket. The man's hand was resting on Stiles' forehead as though he was judging his temperature, but he wasn't doing it in that impersonal, clinical way that he associated with the doctors and nurses that periodically came to check on his son and to adjust the machines surrounding him.

As the sheriff watched through the observation window from the corridor, he thought the body language of the man bending over his son suggested sentiment or emotion of some sort. Intimacy even. In his current detached state the sheriff was slow to understand the possible implications of this and he continued to watch while his brain attempted to process this information.

Then he realised that the man's hand was moving and he was actually stroking his son's forehead. This seemed incongruous. Who knew Stiles well enough to be that familiar with him, even given the dire situation he was in? He could only really imagine his wife caressing his son in such a seemingly caring way, and that thought had his guts churning anew.

The sick feeling grounded him, bringing him fully back to reality and he stepped into the room ready for a confrontation. He drew in an audible shocked breath when the man turned to face him and he recognised Derek Hale, erstwhile murder suspect and shadowy stalker character who had cornered the market in bad luck.

"Get away from my son," he ordered, his voice scratchy, with an audible tremor, his hand flying to the Glock on his hip.

_A/N: Chapter 2 up tomorrow. Thank you for reading._


	2. Chapter 2

**Saving Stiles Ch2**

"Sheriff Stilinski," Derek acknowledged, taking a bare half a step back from Stiles bedside and bringing his hand down to the side of the bed.

"What the hell are you doing here, Hale? Come to gloat?" The sheriff came to a halt at the end of Stiles' bed. He felt anger building in him and he didn't examine it or bother to hide it.

"Gloat? Why would…? I came to see Stiles. To help him…"

"Help? What could you do? You a doctor? No, didn't think so. Your family's gone, so you've come to take pleasure in someone else's family tragedy?" It was bizarre logic but coherent thought and the Sheriff had parted company at about the same time that he'd realised that the doctors had lost hope for his son's recovery.

"Stiles, he's dying?" Derek was staring, his face hard and unreadable. The sheriff was suspicious of this man's sudden appearance at his son's bedside and he focused on his distrust because it kept him from dwelling on the reality of the answer to that question.

"I can help," Derek continued without waiting for the answer he must have known would never come. It was a bland statement, devoid of any emotion except the steely focus of his soft green eyes that seemed to be throwing down a challenge.

"And which medical school did you attend, Derek? Oh, that's right; we just established: you didn't."

"Yet I can save your son's life." This time Derek dropped his gaze and his voice was barely above a whisper.

"Ok, I'll humour you. How?" the sheriff asked dismissively.

"I can show you. But not here."

"Well, that's not happening, because I don't leave my son's bedside for anyone," and he still had wits enough to know that he had indeed left a short while ago to go nowhere in particular and for no discernible reason. But he didn't owe Derek Hale an explanation, even if he had one.

"Then you need to put your gun out of reach," Derek looked him square in the face again.

"The hell I will!" Something didn't feel right about this and the sheriff felt his hackles rise. "Just what the Sam Hill are you doing here, Hale?"

"I told you. I can help Stiles. Save him."

"Cut the bullshit. Why are you really here?"

Derek sighed. Then he turned to look back towards the pale figure in the bed.

"I'm a …a friend of Stiles'. Even if I couldn't help, I would want to be here. By his side. But I have a way to save him. Not one he will like, or thank me for. Neither will you, but I could care less about your opinion. That Stiles lives is all I'm concerned with. And if I do this, if I save him, he will never speak to me again. But I have to do this. I have no option."

"Oh, you've plenty of options, son. You can leave now. Or I can arrest you and have you taken back to the station. We have some mighty fine cells there. You might remember?"

"After I've saved Stiles you can lock me up and throw away the key. Shoot me even. I won't stop you. Hell, if you don't kill me, Stiles probably will. Not that it will matter."

"You're not being rational," the sheriff told him, as if anything in this whole business made a lick of sense. "You want I should call for a psych consult?"

"I'm trying to tell you," Derek enunciated slowly, "that I will save your son and afterwards your son will most likely want me dead."

"Any time you want to start making sense, you go right ahead."

Derek sighed. "I know what is killing your son. It's a rare neuro-toxin."

"You know this? For sure? You have to tell the doc …"

"No," Derek cut in, "I've explained to Deaton, the veterinarian, and I've given him the corpse so he can work up the anti-venom."

"Corpse? Wait, anti-venom? There's a cure? You have to …"

"No, not a cure for Stiles. Only treatment for those recently infected. It won't help your son."

"And what sort of snake? But, no, wait a goddamn minute; Stiles wasn't bitten. He wasn't nauseous, there was no visible swelling and the doctors found no puncture wounds, so I'm thinking: not a snakebite. And Deaton? Why the vet?"

"Not a snake, but a creature more in Deaton's line of work than the doctor's here. He knows how to develop the anti-venom – it's, um, specialist work. But it's too late for that for Stiles. I am his only hope. I can save him."

"Yeah, so you keep saying. Yet you're not a doctor, nor even a vet. Should we be moving this conversation to the Psych Wing?

"I'll tell you everything, but I have to save Stiles first. He…he doesn't have long."

The look Derek gave him, shocked the sheriff. He had developed a pretty good bullshit detector over the years in law enforcement and it was telling him now that Derek genuinely believed that Stiles was about to die. Imminently rather than sometime during the next 48 hours. He clearly believed Stiles was dying and the sheriff could see that Derek was deeply saddened by the thought. He couldn't imagine the story behind any of this and that worried him. On top of everything that was happening he didn't need this shit.

"Tell you what, Derek. You leave now and I won't have to think up a plausible reason for having your arse hauled out of here to spend eternity in jail. Okay?"

"I'll leave when Stiles is safe. Don't worry, I'll be gone before he wakes up. He won't want to see me."

"Okay, this is so far from making any sense that I'm beginning to feel like I just stepped through the Looking Glass. Now would be a good time to leave under your own steam, son."

"Put your gun out of reach and I'll save Stiles and be gone."

"Oh right, because that's happening! Want to explain why you get twitchy about my gun?"

"I don't want you to shoot me out of shock or fear before I have a chance to do what I have to do. After? If you want to shoot me, I won't stop you."

Derek slumped into the cheap plastic chair adjacent to Stiles bed and it was then that the sheriff noticed that Derek was holding his son's hand. Actually, their hands were entwined and Derek's thumb was making little circular movements at the base of Stiles' thumb.

Derek Hale was stroking his son's hand!

That was all kinds of wrong, posed all kinds of questions he ought to know the answers to. He should ask. He should say something to stop it. But this wasn't threatening, this was... well, it was a caress. He didn't know how to respond to that piece of information. It wasn't enough that he didn't know what was happening that would be the death of his son, but it seemed he didn't know the half of what was happening in his life either.

"Explain. My gun will remain holstered unless you give me cause to use it." He slipped a finger under the strap at the top of the holster and flipped it up to unfasten it.

Another sigh emanated from Derek.

"Stiles was infected by a rare toxin in the saliva of the creature Deaton is currently taking cultures from. The toxin will be fatal to him within the hour."

"And you can tell that just by looking at him, Dr House?"

"I don't expect you to understand. But I can smell death approaching. I need to …" Derek dropped his head for a moment and seemed to focus on the small rhythmic motion of his thumb on Stiles' skin. But before the sheriff could form another question, the younger man looked up again.

"It would have been better if Scott was here but his mother has him on lock-down," Derek said, sounding weary.

"Yeah, for a nurse, Melissa, um, Mrs McCall, sure is freaking out about this infection Stiles has. I guess she's scared Scott will come down with it too."

"He's immune." Derek stated flatly.

"You really do fancy yourself as a doctor, don't you son?"

Derek ignored the comment and continued, "This would be better coming from Scott but we don't have time to get him away from his mom."

"What's Scott got to do with this? Is he responsible for Stiles being like this?"

"No, the creature responsible is dead. I killed it. Deaton is dissecting it about now."

"Creature? You mean the snake?"

"No, not a snake. A different sort of reptile you could call it. I was searching for the thing that killed Isaac's father and I found that it wasn't alone. Something else had been summoned."

"A snake killed Lahey? That was no snake mauled him up like that."

"No. Look, forget all that. I can explain later. For now, I need to stop Stiles from dying."

"You keep saying that. Care to tell me how? Because if you think I'm letting you experiment with some anti-venom that a local vet has cooked up you can think again."

"No anti-venom."

"Well?"

Derek stood up and took in a deep breath, which gave the sheriff the impression that half the air in the room had just been used up. He eased his right hand back down to rest on the grip of his gun. He saw Derek notice but neither man said anything about it. He also noted that the hand that held his son's had stilled.

"What I'm going to tell you will seem bizarre and whether you believe me or not I need you to respect my confidence and tell no-one of this conversation except Stiles when he asks – as he will."

"How about you tell me what's eatin' you and I'll be the judge of what I do with the information?"

Derek inclined his head briefly in agreement. "I'm a werewolf. And Scott is a werewolf. I need to bite Stiles to make him a wolf too because then he won't die. He'll heal and he'll be immune to the venom, like Scott. He will be a werewolf, but he won't be dead."

"Oh, that's good! But I think you mean, 'vampire'. They're the ones who bite people to turn them into vampires like themselves, aren't they? My late night TV viewing isn't what it used to be with all the double shifts I work. But son, I think you need serious help if your idea of how to spend a Tuesday night is to go round telling upsetting tall stories to folks visiting sick relatives in hospital."

Then Derek shifted into his wolf.


	3. Chapter 3

**Saving Stiles Ch3**

Derek's eyes glowed red and his snout pushed out, fur appearing in place of skin and stubble. Sharp canines descended and pushed out of the elongated muzzle. Claws appeared at the ends of his hands, which were now larger and fur-covered, like the paws of an overgrown husky. One was still curled around Stiles' hand but though the hairy paw completely enveloped the smaller human one, its claws were held away from the pale skin.

Sheriff Stilinski stepped back and blinked. He was so drained from five days of hardly any sleep and practically mainlining caffeine that his usual reaction, to draw his weapon, then detain and Miranda the threat, just didn't kick in.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, guppy-like, without a sound escaping, as Derek shifted back.

"I'm sorry. I know that's a shock but we don't have time. Stiles doesn't have time. Werewolves exist; I'm one; Scott is one – and a few others – and Stiles will be one too. I'm sorry. There's no other way."

"I, um, I … Scott's a …? No way. That's not right. And you want to do _that_ to Stiles?"

"It's the only way …"

"Get away. Get away from my son," the sheriff practically growled as he drew his gun and waved it wildly towards Derek.

"I can't do that." Derek looked pained. The sheriff was unimpressed.

"You move away from my son right now or I'll empty the clip into you. You're a monster and you want my son to be one too? That's not happening. Now, step away."

"Don't you get it?" Derek let go of Stiles hand to run both hands through his hair, making it stick up in a way that, it seemed to the sheriff, might have been comical in other circumstances.

"I don't _want_ your son to be like me. But if I don't bite him he _will_ die. He can't survive this poison as a human. He never wanted to be a wolf and he'll hate me for this for the rest of his life. But if I don't turn him, the rest of his life will be less than an hour."

"He knows about this? About you? Stiles knows about what…what you are?"

"Yes, since Scott was bitten. It was Stiles who worked out Scott was a werewolf."

"Scott? Is Melissa a, um, wolf too?"

"No, and she doesn't know about any of this. But Stiles knows and he's helped me and helped Scott. He knows the advantages of being a werewolf but he doesn't want that for himself. It's likely he will try to kill me when he realises that I turned him. I'm not sure I'll stop him. But I need to bite him now before it's too late."

Derek turned towards the hospital bed as the sheriff flipped up the safety on his gun. "Stop right there. Make another move towards my son and I _will_ drop you," he boomed with utter conviction.

"Dad?"

It was a scratchy noise, but it was Stiles. Stiles was awake and even as the sheriff wondered at how that was possible, he remembered the last doctor saying something about reducing the morphine levels to give him some 'time' with his son. Only now did he understand what he had meant.

"Stiles?" he gasped, rooted to the spot as the implication of his son's return to consciousness hit him. This was his final chance to talk with his son.

Frozen by a log-jam of emotions, he watched as Derek dropped to his knees beside the bed and Stiles turned his head slightly at the movement. And the sheriff's heart nearly crumbled away as his son realised who was next to him and his face split into a broad smile.

"Derek? What are you doing in my r …? I'm not in my room, am I? Oh! I got slimed by that Kanima wannabe, didn't I? Why does my throat hurt?"

The sheriff stepped closer then, drawing his son's gaze, as he re-holstered his gun with embarrassed haste. "They put one of those tubes down your throat when you were first admitted. To help you breathe. You're in Beacon Hills Memorial. Do you remember who did this to you?" That doesn't involve mythical beasts he wanted to add.

"Hospital? Oh, right. Yeah, it's coming back to me." His son was focussed back on Derek again. "Does he know?" he asked Derek and got a curt nod in reply.

"Derek," the sheriff began, "care to give me and my son some privacy?" It didn't sound like a request.

"No! No, dad. I want him to stay." Then turning to Derek, Stiles asked, "I'm dying, right? That's why you two are all long faces and angsty tension?"

"Yes," Derek answered bluntly, seemingly without emotion.

"Good to know," Stiles said, managing a slim lob-sided grin. "So, okay, I can guess why you're here." The grin vanished.

"It's the only way. Deaton is working up an anti-venom but …"

"Yeah, I get it. I was slimed too long ago for it to be of any help."

Derek merely nodded.

"You don't have to do this," Stiles said softly, as if he was discussing the plan for a minor hazing.

"Yes I really have to," Derek said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"No, you really don't."

"If I could have stopped this… But I didn't know there was another creature out there…"

"None of us could have guessed. It's not your fault. Not your mess to clear up. You were just trying to help. You don't have to do this, Derek. It's okay to walk away."

"I won't walk away, Stiles. You can't ask me to not try to save you."

The sheriff watched the exchange with open curiosity, feeling like a Peeping Tom hiding in plain sight, observing something that he shouldn't be party to.

"Derek, I don't want you to have to turn another person. You have your pack. You don't need me."

"Don't need you? Stiles!" Derek pushed a hand through his hair again. "I know this isn't what you want but we're out of options here. You can't leave me."

"Derek?"

"Let me do this. Then, if you don't want to see me again, I'll go. I'll take the others and we'll leave Beacon Hills and you'll never hear from me again. But let me do this. You need not to die. I need you not to die."

"Why? Why are you even here, Derek? I know I saved your life at the pool, but there were no strings attached. You don't have to return the favour."

"I'm not here to return a favour. I'm here to save your life."

"Yeah, got that, Derek. But why?"

"You're dying Stiles. I can save you. You know I can. And then I'll go. I know you won't want me here. After. Scott can help you through your first full moon. But you're resourceful and smart; I know you won't have too much trouble adjusting. It will work out fine. It's not that bad."

"I don't feel that bad now. Perhaps I'm over the worst."

"It's the medication. Stiles, I'm sorry. But I can sense that … I have to do this. Do this now."

"That bad, huh?" Stiles pulled a face.

"We don't have long," Derek murmured.

"_I _don't have long, you mean," and there was a small smile this time. "It's okay, Derek. You can do what you need to do."

"You're okay with this. You'll let me?" The sheriff heard an ocean of hope in Derek's voice and he had the distinct impression that he was missing something important. It would have to wait.

"Yeah, kinda beats being dead," Stiles said lightly. "Look, I'm not a wolf-ist. I mean I didn't want to seem, you know, species-ist because I'm not overly enthusiastic to become a werewolf. It's just that you – the pack – you need someone to look out for you, keep you all out of trouble. Someone who's human. And I just saw that someone as being me. I can't watch your back so well if I have to watch mine too because of the hunters or the next Kanima or whatever. You get that, right? It's not that I have anything against werewolves per se. My best friend is a werewolf."

Derek nodded and glanced across at the sheriff as if he had just remembered that he was also in the room. Stiles followed his look.

"Hey, dad. Bet this is a bit weird, right?"

"Left 'weird' in the rear-view several junctions back. Not sure I've followed everything that's happening. Not sure I want to."

"It's gonna be okay, dad. Could you, um, give me and Derek a moment? He's got to bite me to save my life. Like I said: weird." His shoulders hitched against the cotton sheet as if shrugging. "But it's okay. Derek knows what he's doing."

"Because biting someone to turn them into a werewolf is perfectly acceptable behaviour. No, Stiles. I'm not having this, this … _thing_" he indicated in Derek's direction with a dismissive flick of his hand, "infect you with anything else. The doctors will sort this out. That's their job.

"And _you_," the lawman spat, now sparing Derek a look of disgusted contempt, "you so much as twitch and I'll put you out of _my_ misery. My service gun may not be loaded with silver bullets but I've yet to see anything survive a well-aimed, close range double-tap. Don't think I won't protect my son with everything in my power."

The sheriff stepped a pace forward, feet firmly planted a shoulder-width apart, an intimidating stance. His left hand was on his hip, his right hand resting on the still holstered Glock, and his face grim.

"Move a hair and I kill you."

_A/N: Final chapter up tomorrow. Thank you for reading._


	4. Chapter 4

**Saving Stiles Ch4**

"Dad, it's okay. Please, you need to let Derek do this for me. He won't hurt me. Well, okay, it'll hurt a bit but I'll heal quickly and I won't be dead. He really can save me. He's done it before. Only not with a bite. Just rescued me a few times. And once or twice I might have saved him too. So it's only fair really. So, anyway, I need him to bite me now. To save my life. Please, dad."

"Can you hear yourself, Stiles? You're talking nonsense. He's brainwashed you. Don't they have those hypnotic eyes or something? Or, or the drugs they've given you, they're messing with your head."

"No dad, I'm dying. I know I am. Derek knows. You know. The doctors probably know too."

And all of a sudden the sheriff felt he was back in that ridiculously small, airless closet listening to a doctor far too young to really understand the horror of hearing that your only son was dying. Dying. Stiles was dying.

After a few moments of silence, while his son watched him carefully and Derek stared at Stiles, the sheriff came to a realisation, though not yet an acceptance.

Since his wife had passed he had relied increasingly on Stiles. Actually put his life in Stiles' hands on too many occasions to admit to. He trusted Stiles to make important decisions when his friend Jack had taken his own reasoning powers away in favour of the numb oblivion that allowed him to forget his loss. Their loss. Stiles seemed to have a wisdom beyond his years. It humbled him. It also helped him come to his decision.

"What does he have to do?" he asked in resignation.

Stiles smiled up at him. Smiled! Something he had thought he would never see again and now it had been prompted by agreeing to allow the local oddball hard man with the tragic past to turn him into a horror movie monster-of-the-week. No, weird didn't even go there.

"Thanks," Stiles murmured before explaining, "Derek will bite me and I probably won't feel so good for a while but then I'll get better. I'll be fine, dad. A little grumpy around full moon but that's just once a month. No different really than if you'd had a daughter instead of a son."

"Christ, Stiles, how did all this happen?" The sheriff's shoulders had dropped and his arms were limp at his sides.

"Dumb luck? Hey, dad, it's better it happened to me because I know about this stuff. I know what will happen to me and what to do about it. I can handle it where maybe others wouldn't be so lucky. So this is good, right?"

"Stiles, your cloud has never not had a silver lining, has it?" his father asked him sadly but in an awed amazement.

"Clouds are good things, dad. They bring rain to drink and for growing crops. And they're pretty to look at, you know, if you like that sort of thing. And I'm not saying that I do because you _didn't_ have a daughter, but clouds are pretty cool on the precipitation front so …Dad?"

His father had turned away as tears leapt over his lower lashes. His son was a damn saint. A cheeky, disrespectful, reckless saint, but a saint nonetheless. He didn't deserve this.

"'S' okay. I trust Derek, dad. You should too. He's good at saving my life. Why don't you go get a coffee? Derek'll do what needs to be done. When you get back, this will all be sorted. Promise."

He didn't trust his voice so he nodded, scrubbed at his eyes, and made his way to the door.

As he stepped across the threshold into the corridor, he chanced a look back at his son and the leather-clad young man who was now perched on the edge of the plastic chair alongside him. The gaunt expression on Derek's face made him look almost as young as Stiles and that just didn't fit with the circumstances they were both facing.

He had never been sure what to make of Derek. Since his return to Beacon Hills he seemed to exude a strange mix of menace and vulnerability. It made it difficult to get a read on the surviving member of the Hale family. He might have agreed to, well, whatever he'd agreed to, but leaving Derek alone with his son made him feel uncomfortable, so he pulled the door to behind him without actually closing it.

The Sheriff couldn't wrap his head around all this. He knew his son was dying. He knew that both Stiles and Derek thought that Derek could 'cure' him by turning him into some kind of part-time wolf. He didn't understand the implications of that and, as he walked on auto-pilot towards the canteen again, he had the sudden need to check out exactly what this 'bite' and its aftermath would entail.

He stopped in his tracks and thought about the absurdity of what he was contemplating; asking a self-confessed 'werewolf' what his … its… bite would do to his son. That is, apart from the obvious, and he only knew that from Hollywood and Derek's brief exhibition.

And what had he really seen? He hadn't slept more than a couple of hours at a time since Stiles was first rushed to the Emergency Room. Maybe he had hallucinated seeing Derek all hairy and snout-having. The power of suggestion on an overwrought mind.

He did an about-turn and headed back to Stiles to get some answers.

As he neared the door to Stiles' room he could hear muted voices. Stiles and Derek were talking and he was suddenly reluctant to interrupt. He hovered just outside the door, part of him waiting for a suitable lull in the conversation so he could enter, and part of him hoping to learn more from whatever he overheard.

As he listened, Stiles was saying, "Why would you think I wouldn't want to see you after?"

"You've made it clear you don't like werewolves and you never wanted to be one. I figured you wouldn't thank me for turning you. That you wouldn't want me around as a reminder of what had happened to you."

"I may have been a tad judgemental about the whole wolf scenario," Stiles replied, "but you can't really blame me considering what happened to Scott. As for me not wanting to be a wolf, well, we don't really have an option. I'm not even a little squeaked. You're saving my life; so I won't be able to thank you enough. And this is your home, Derek. I wouldn't want you to leave on my account."

"Maybe I'd be leaving for me. This will be down to me and I never really saw you as a wolf. I'm sorry."

"Oh – kaay. I'm sorry I'd be such a disappointment as a wolf. If you don't want me as a member of your pack you just have to say …"

"Not a disappointment, no. And why wouldn't I want you as part of my pack? Wait. You would be okay with being part of my pack?"

"Well, duh! You would kind of be my, um, maker. My mentor. My Yoda. But I get that you don't want that. So …"

"You think I wouldn't want you in my pack? No, Stiles, my pack would be stronger with you. You would be, um, welcome. I just thought you didn't want that."

"Superpowers and a ready-made support network and family? Who wouldn't want that?"

"Yeah, pack's good. But we should do this now."

The sheriff tensed and wondered if he should go in and forbid Derek to touch his son. But hadn't he already made the decision to trust his son to make the right call? And Stiles was adamant that Derek would save him. He stood his ground, just beyond the doorway, out of sight of the room's occupants, unashamedly listening to their conversation.

"One thing though, Derek," Stiles said, his voice hushed now. "Earlier you … you, um, held my hand. I kind of knew but I couldn't really move or do anything; the medication I guess. I'm not complaining or anything but … why?"

"Why?" Derek repeated.

"Yeah. It was kind of … comforting. But confusing as well. I know you've been in to see me before too. Sometimes I could feel you here. Sometimes I heard the nurses talking. Saying that you spend a lot of time here. Whenever my dad has to leave you suddenly appear. That's what the nurses say.

"They think you're my boyfriend and that dad doesn't approve so you keep out of his way. I heard one nurse ask him about you, but when she said 'boyfriend' dad just thought she was getting me mixed up with another patient. Because he knows I don't have a boyfriend."

The sheriff vaguely remembered the blonde nurse asking something about visitors, but he'd been too distracted to focus when he realised, wrongly it seemed now, that she didn't mean his son.

"You've been in to visit me every day," Stiles continued, "Why?"

"You were hurt because I messed up. I missed that there was another creature out there. And I didn't get to you in time to stop the attack."

"I get that you think you're responsible. You're not FYI, but I get that you think that you are. But that may explain why you might visit me in hospital once. But you kept coming and … Derek, I could feel you here. Feel you touch my hand or my forehead. I, um, I liked it; it was … reassuring. But Derek, you didn't have to sit here and do that. I need to know why you did."

The sheriff realised he was holding his breath waiting for Derek's answer. He had to strain to hear it when Derek spoke next.

"What do you want me to say, Stiles?"

"I need to know. Are the nurses right? Are you my, um, boyfriend?"

"Would it bother you if I was?" The sheriff heard the vulnerability in Derek's voice. He hadn't heard that tone from the boy since he had been assigned to sit with Derek while they waited for Child Services in the aftermath of the Hale Mansion fire.

"Bother me? Is that what you think? No, I'd be incredulous and I'd wonder about your sanity, for sure. I mean, you've met me, right? And I have it on good authority that I'm not attractive to guys. But if I was, you know, um, attractive to, well, you, I'd be majorly flattered, proud as anything and epically happy. Maybe a bit lightheaded too so it's good I'm lying down. So. Are we an item now? Because I could totally see us together."

The sheriff heard the scrape of the leg of the plastic chair against the floor before his son continued, "So I guess that's a 'yes' then?"

"That's a 'yes'. Now, can I save your goddamn life now?"

"Think you just did, Mr Sour Wolf! C'mon, let's do this."

The chair scraped again, the bed creaked, and then the sheriff heard sounds he really didn't want to put a name to. And they weren't anything to do with wolf bites. Well, not, the sheriff supposed, the sort that would bring about the transformation into a werewolf.

For several minutes he managed to successfully block out the noises and whispered voices coming from the room, as a sense of shame vied with his innate curiosity as he tried to decide whether to leave quietly or continue his eavesdropping on the basis of ensuring his son's safety. A loud moan from his son broke into his inner debate and he heard him murmur, "Need to hear you say it, Derek. Please."

"Goddammit, Stiles. I … I love you. Satisfied?" Derek sounded mock-exasperated.

"You, um … you love me? For real? How did that hap…?"

Evidently, Stiles had been silenced by a kiss. Then his son mumbled, "Now, please, Derek, now," and then he moaned again but there was an undertone of pain this time.

The sheriff wanted to do something, say something, shoot something, but he found himself backing away from the room with a turn of speed that surprised him. He would really rather not be thinking about what was happening to his dying son in that hospital room; his dying son who was most likely no longer dying and was apparently gay now too. How did he miss that? He had to drop the double shifts.

He needed a drink. He needed for his mind to be anywhere else and his brain scrambled around for something to latch on to that wasn't to do with what was happening in that room.

Then he had a brainwave: Scott. He'd go ask Scott to explain all of this werewolf malarkey and the 'Derek Hale loves my son' shenanigans too. He headed down the corridor to the nurse's station to call Scott and get him to come in. If Melissa tried to stop him, he'd say he was a material witness to a crime. Didn't seem that far from the truth. Yes, Scott had some explaining to do. Then later, he'd have to have a talk with that son of his.

And then he was smiling stupidly as he realised that he believed he and his son would have a 'later' after all.


End file.
